


Cloudburst

by Hagar



Series: Undo/Redo [3]
Category: Bones (TV)
Genre: Episode Related, Episode Tag, Multi, b3
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-12-26
Updated: 2010-12-26
Packaged: 2017-10-14 03:13:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 879
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/144726
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hagar/pseuds/Hagar
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Whatever was wrong, it was definitely about Temperance, it was at least as unusual as it was bad, and it was nothing so simple that a stay in the hospital could fix.</p><p>Tag to episode 6.09, <i>The Doctor in the Photo.</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	Cloudburst

**Author's Note:**

> In Undo/Redo continuity. Episode tag to 6.09, _The Doctor in the Photo_.

The sounds of a lock turning, the door pushed open, footsteps that the weight and length of which she could recognize even when they just shuffled through the door. Hannah smiled to herself. “I made gratin,” she called as she made towards the living room. “And I didn’t even burn it. How did…”

Seeley was still hanging his coat. Usually that would have been enough time for him to ditch the coat and switch over to slippers. Hannah registered that together with his posture, and when he turned she could she his expression.

“What happened?” she asked, more quietly. She stayed where she stood. His was the face of a man who would need comfort – as soon as he would be able to accept it, which was not just yet.

He’d gone after Temperance, after she –

“Is Temperance all right?”

He started, and she didn’t blink out of sheer professional instinct. Whatever was wrong, it was definitely about Temperance, and it was at least as unusual as it was bad.

Hannah had processed all that in a split second and continued smoothly, as if she didn’t need to think before coming up with the words: “You said she’d gone out following that case and you were going after her so I presumed – ”

“Temperance is all right,” he said. His voice said anything but, and more than that – he’d called his partner ‘Temperance.’

Something was terribly wrong, and it was nothing so simple that a stay in the hospital could fix.

“Get out of those shoes,” she said. “They’re wet.”

“What? Oh, right.”

She didn’t turn back to the kitchen while he clumsily removed his shoes and hunted down the slippers. Her instinct was to give herself time and him space, but Seeley Booth only did as he was told without question if he was in need of reassurance or halfway to shock. Removing her gaze from him, let alone turning her back, would be a very bad idea.

“Sit,” she said, pointing at the dinner table. “Dinner will stay warm in the oven.” The chair had a view into the kitchen. She waited for him to sit down and then dug through for something that wasn’t water and wasn’t alcohol, brought two glasses back to the table, handed him one and waited until he’d made himself drink before she repeated, “What happened?”

“Well, the good news are, she solved the case.”

No automatic use of the first person plural. ‘She.’ The split second between the end of that sentence and the beginning of the next was more than long enough for several very bad scenarios to flash through Hannah’s mind. They were all equally implausible.

“The victim was hit by a car,” Seeley continued. “It was a hit and run.”

Hannah waited; and while she waited, fevently wished – she would not _pray_ – that Seeley would not try for an ‘And that was all.’

“There was that guy that the victim was friends with. Sort of.”

“The heli pilot,” said Hannah.

“Yeah, that’s the guy.”

The pilot who was romantically interested in Seeley’s and Tempe’s victim, who – in turn – was uninterested in him.

“And I told you that Bones really…” He toyed with his glass, looked down at the table.

“That she took this case personally,” she completed.

“Yeah,” he said, drawing the word into two, nearly three syllables.

Temperance saw her own face in the dead woman’s. From what Seeley told Hannah and what she’d overheard of his and Cam’s phone conversations, that was just one aspect of Temperance’s pathological identification with the victim.

Something was horribly, terribly wrong. Hannah didn’t see just yet how it all gelled together, but her gut already clenched ominously.

She didn’t give Seeley any more easy outs. She didn’t have any to offer.

“What happened?” she asked after a moment. “What did Tempe do?”

‘Tempe’ was what Seeley called his partner in moments of tenderness, and Hannah used that nickname deliberately. Seeley started at it, making eye contact.

“It’s – ” He lowered his eyes again. “It’s what she didn’t do.”

What she didn’t do. The pilot whom the surgeon had never given a chance. The surgeon that Temperance identified so strongly with.

Hannah didn’t have to ask who was Temperance’s pilot.

“Oh,” she said. Her voice was flatter, most strangled than she would have liked it to be.

Seeley’s face contorted, pain flashing across them, before he leaned across the desk and grabbed her hand. “Hannah, I – ”

She took in his expression, his voice, everything about him, and on impulse – because she couldn’t kiss right then in more ways than one – pressed the back of his hand to her cheek.

“I know,” she said. “Seeley, I know.”

“I love you.” His voice was strangled, but true. “I love you, Hannah. It’s – what I told her.”

She turned his hand, wrapping it with hers, and pressed the palm against her face.

Hannah didn’t need to ask if he’d loved Tempe, if he’d told her that – and if so, what did she say – or if he still did. She didn’t need for him to tell her that he loved her truly. She already knew. He’d already told her.

She had no idea what to do other than press a kiss into his palm, and say nothing.


End file.
